You'll never guess where the original is kept

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The ceremonial golden spike that celebrated the completion of the
Transcontinental Railroad is housed at Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center.
W.T. Garratt Foundry, San Francisco, *The Last Spike*, 1869. Gold, alloyed
with copper. Gift of David Hewes, 1998.115

Placing the famed Golden Spike, the last spike completing America’s first Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, symbolized a new era for the country, a united front after the Civil War, a link of East to West and the path to new horizons in the future.

But the spike wasn’t just a metaphor. It was an actual thing, made of solid 17.6-karat gold, gently tapped in place by Leland Stanford – one of the “Big Four” railroad tycoons of the West and founder of Stanford University — for the photo-op, then removed and saved as a souvenir. (Don’t worry, it was replaced by an honest-to-iron-worker’s spike that actually held the tracks together.)

So where did the Golden Spike go? This priceless icon of American history is not normally stored where you’d think it would be, at Utah’s Golden Spike National Historic Site. There’s a replica there instead. Rather, the real spike is kept in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford (although at the moment, it’s on loan to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts for their exhibition, “The Race to Promontory”).

But guess what — turns out there was another golden spike, a twin made at the same time that has since been called the “Lost Spike.” It was held in a private collection until 2005, when it was acquired by the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento. “We have the one that’s been called the Lost Spike,” says Ty Smith, the museum’s director.

It’s such a treasure, would-be thieves broke into the museum in 2014 and tried — unsuccessfully — to steal it. But the spike remains and is currently on display along with the famous “Last Spike” painting by Thomas Hill, depicting the 1869 ceremonial scene.

Fun fact: There used to be a Gold Spike restaurant and saloon in North Beach. It was there for 86 years but closed in 2006. Not that they had the actual spike, though. Just spiked drinks.

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